Welcome to Live & How to Live It, aka Maps & Legends Pt. 2, aka The Continued Adventures of Wilhelmina Hawke and Company.

For those of you just joining us: We're at the beginning of Act II, about seven months after the Deep Roads expedition.

For those of you returning: This is going to be a step up from Maps in terms of adult content. Seriously. There will be a lot of adult content.

For everyone: BioWare owns Thedas, its characters and all that stuff and is the best for letting hacks like me touch it and shade it and trust that I'm not going to ruin everything good about it.

"This is peculiar," a familiar voice rouses Wil from sleep. "The richest woman in Hightown sleeping on a cold hearth like a common street urchin."

"Mumph," is the only response Wil can summon, choosing instead to push a happily slumbering Bello out of the way so she can roll over, as if rolling over could stop Aveline if Aveline wanted her up badly enough.

Which, of course, she does.

"You do realize that it's almost nightfall don't you?" The voice is a few inches from Wil's ear. Wil draws herself tighter, wrapping her arms around her head to muffle what she knows will come next. You promised Leandra..."that you'd go to the Chantry for prayer this evening. Come on, Hawke. I know that you...," Aveline isn't quite certain how to proceed. Not that Wil's given any of her friends any guidance on that front. "It can't be easy, knowing what day it is. But however hard today is on you, it has to be that much harder on Leandra."

This does the trick. Wil unfolds, shifting onto her back and staring into green eyes beneath thin, drawn brows. "Fuck you, Captain."

Lips twitch up in a hint of a satisfied smile. "You're covered with dust and soot, Hawke. Clean up first. Then we'll talk about it." She offers a strong hand and pulls Wil up from the floor with admirable ease. "And you better get a move on. The evening service starts in an hour."

Wil screws her face up in distaste, but allows herself to be shepherded upstairs to her washroom.

Which...her washroom has yet to stop sounding wrong. Her washroom, off of her bedroom and her manservant standing at the door in case she needs anything.

Not that she would ever ask Sandal to attend to her while she's naked, or even wait. The young dwarf, his services offered as a reward for his rescue in the Deep Roads, still unsettles her. She'd prefer to never find out if he found her breasts more or less enchanting than he did everything else.

Aveline stays, though. Wil keeps the door between rooms open so they talk while she washes off the accumulated grime of a night's patrol in the sewers and a morning spent cleaning the estate library.

"From what I can tell, the slavers left most of the books untouched," Wil cringes as her feet hit the cold water. Sandal must have drawn the bath that morning. "I guess they weren't big readers."

Aveline snorts. "Barely literate, more like. We still have a few being held after the raid, and Bronwyn down in the prison tells me they're the dumbest bunch of slobs she's ever met. They're also terrified the Viscount's going to hand them over to the Arishok for some reason," Wil can practically hear the shrug of it's not a terrible idea in Aveline's voice. "I don't believe in torturing men for no reason, but letting it hang over their heads keeps them in line."

"And, you know, slavers," Wil scrubs at a stubborn patch on her knee for almost a full, fruitless minute before she realizes bruise. A quick assessment of both legs and her arms reveals close to twenty. "What's the weather doing? When I was out this morning, it was colder than the Wilds...only with more sun- not as many clouds."

"It's still cool. Not like it gets in Ferelden, though. But we've both lost some of our insulation," Aveline trails off, and Wil can picture her friend running her hand down her well muscled abdomen, a frown touching her brow. She'd not be thinking of missed meals, but of the stresses that cause them. "With the sun heading down, you should probably wear something more substantial than this dress Leandra has out for you."

The burgundy silk. Uncomfortable and neither prudish enough to say you'd be better off trying your luck elsewhere nor revealing enough to bring shame to Mother when my gesticulating gets out of hand. She sinks back against the edge of the basin, allowing herself a few minutes of comfort now that she's accustomed to the water. "I bet she's hoping we'll see Prince Vael at the Chantry. She found out about him through one of her new old friends, and apparently the whole bride of the Maker thing isn't going to stand in the way of her thinking I should pursue him in an I want your sexy, sexy political connections and superior blood sort of way."

"Hawke." Watch yourself. "You shouldn't go mocking the clergy, even if he is in your debt. Especially now that people are paying attention to you."

Hands finding the edge of the basin, Wil splashes out of the tub, her teeth chattering before she can pull on her thickest robe.

"I have a thickest robe," she's speaking mostly to herself and it's been over seven months...the absurdity should be wearing off by now. "And I wish people would stop paying attention. I'm tired of pretending like I know half the places they talk about, or the names they drop. Plus, it's cutting into my Hanged Man time."

Aveline leans in, one flushed cheek pressed against the stone doorframe. "According to Varric, you haven't been to the Hanged Man for over two weeks. I know from the mess downstairs you haven't spent all that time on the house."

Nosy Aveline. Wil debates whether or not she should even attempt a cover story. Her fingers slip up her damp neck and curl into the wet hair curling there. It's longer than it's been since Ostagar, allowed to grow unchecked. "Maybe I've taken a lover," Wil retorts, arch and too late. "Did you ever consider that?"

Continuing her tour of deflection, Wil sails past Aveline and into the bedroom, pulling open the wardrobe and dragging out the first remotely practical garment she finds. It's a blue wool tunic over a lighter linen dress. Worn with a cape, it should be warm enough.

"Sure. I'll play along with the laughable notion of you taking a lover," the older woman takes an uneasy seat at the edge of Wil's bed, the mattress stripped and heavily stained. "Romantic nighttime walks in Darktown...quite the catch, Hawke."

The robe comes off, a hurried gesture, and Wil doesn't look to see if Aveline averts her gaze. Normally she'd drag this out, perhaps go up on her toes and cock her hips in a deliberate tease. Despite the fact she wants to not talk about this with anyone, she can't bring herself to do anything but tug on her undergarments with big, careless gestures that she hopes hides the tremor in her hands.

"You're not responsible for my well-being, Mother," Wil turns once the dress is on, her fingers and her attention on the laces that run up the side of her tunic. Even pulled tight, it hangs away from her breasts in unflattering folds and creases. Maker's breath, I'm almost as flat as Merrill now. "You don't need to have me followed."

"Don't I?" Aveline stands and immediately strides away. "I'm Captain of the City Guard, Hawke. It's my duty to keep Kirkwall and the people in it safe," she pauses near the door. "And for some idiotic reason, I hate the thought of you ending up on the wrong end of a bandit's blade. Although if someone wanted to do something about that tongue of yours...a reward might be in order."

She leaves, the door closing behind her with not quite a slam. Were this the apartment, the adjacent walls would still be shaking. But in this place there is only a brief noise and then strong stone. Silent.

Wil misses walls that shook, and drafty floors and the clatter and din of the square below. It's so comfortable here...there's never that breath of relief when a blanket wrapped tight warms shivering limbs, or when you wake up alone and worried that the rest of the world might have died without you knowing only to hear the reassuring shouts of children at play. Here it's too easy to think the world is dead and...just not care.

She has no idea what anymore, but she knows it's not a good thing to just not care.

Justice is strangely fascinated by the Blooming Rose.

Anders, on the other hand, is uncomfortable. He sits at the bar while Madame Lusine scrounges up the gold necessary to keep her workers in good health. Normally not one to charge, Anders wastes so much time on check-ups and treatments here, and reassuring the whores' shallow concerns, that he feels some restitution is fair. There's also the matter of how it feels to be a place such as this, all plush finery and low light, women clad in scraps of silk running discreet hands over their breasts so that their nipples remain pleasingly taut and men that glisten prowling in equally scant clothing. Their eyes make circuits around the room, their attention flitting easily over the regulars who would be around all night to those with more fleeting interest and heavier pockets.

They ignore Anders.

They associate him with discomfort, with pain, with fear. They associate him with disinterest when he has their pride spread before him, their legs parted and self-worth hinging on the flickers of desire they see so many times in the subtle lip-biting, sweating, and shifting of others but not from him. They associate him with you need to be careful and I'll tell Lusine you'll not be able to work for a week and I told you what to watch out for last time I was here…it's really not that difficult.

They don't know who he used to be.

There's a couple in the corner, a voluptuous red-haired woman and her slender, Antivan husband. They're here often, a legitimately charming pair who grope each other openly even as they assess the other patrons. They're not here for the whores any more than Anders is, but they are looking for someone eager to join them in their posh rented rooms. A true third party, of course, as none could deny the passion they have for each other, barely concealed beneath their skin.

Two years ago, he'd been in their position. He'd been with a woman who could incite him with a turning touch, her duty shed as easily as her clothes could be littered across the floor of whatever room they'd locked themselves into. They'd spent nights at a similar place in Amaranthine, their upper bodies held at a respectable distance but below the table their hands seeking the other through robes and leathers and damp satin smalls. Men and women would pass, desire-crooked lips pressed together and even when they were beautiful, which wasn't too often, he saw only where the evening would end:

With the man or woman handpicked from the passing men and women gone and unimportant as he settled into contented slumber, his face buried in the hair of a woman who shed duty as easily as her clothes, but only for him.

Justice turns, as Anders knew he would.

How do you think I feel, Anders wonders, knowing how quick you are to pull me from the brink of the very desire that so intrigues you here?

It is something else…like the need of those below, like the need of the mages. But different. Stronger, in its way, but not as desperate.

A thirst that can be endured. Anders pushes aside his half-empty mug of ale and struggles with the flush of warmth spreading along his stomach that has little to do with alcohol. You underestimate how easy it is to endure this.

Then we should leave.

A smart, yet useless, idea. The clinic is no better. If anything, it's almost worse now…only the edge he walks there is anticipation.

It draws him out of healing, out of writing, out of sleep. It yanks his heart with almost painful insistence and settles bone-deep to make every person who comes into his clinic, every bit of human contact, every night spent alone a profound disappointment.

Food arrives each morning, hand-delivered by a grocer who must either pay well or command uncommon loyalty from the boys who run his wares to have any willing to venture into the undercity alone and carrying its most sought after commodity.

Supplies arrive two times a week, Lirene and a few of her new hires bringing them down in non-descript cartons that bear the Kirkwall city insignia on them in faded red paint.

One morning he'd sifted through the crates himself, his fingers catching on a narrow strip of paper. On it was drawn a tabby cat, readied to pounce. For a moment he'd considered this a sign before Lirene had plucked it from his grasp with a sheepish "I use that to keep place in my books", leaving him crestfallen and even more susceptible to the flood of excitement that accompanied every new patient or visitor.

This is why we need to leave Kirkwall.

As idle as a finger stirring a drink, Justice proposes it again. It had been their plan, after all. Even before Karl, they'd thought about traveling to other Circles, or even to the College of Magi in Cumberland to see if he couldn't gain an audience with one of the Senior Enchanters there to discuss the situation in Kirkwall. While he did not think Knight-Captain Meredith a reasonable sort, a grave understatement, the Chantry is sometimes willing to hear out the more reasoned mage leaders. That such an approach would be a slow one, and probably yield little appreciable results save for a newfound awareness among the mages outside of the Gallows as to what is going on to their brethren within the Gallows, is why Anders has not been able to fully commit.

Or so he tells himself.

Instead he's been seeking a lead given to him by Karl. The older man had not the audacity to spell it out in the letters he'd sent, but the hints had been there. Sympathetic templars, non-mages and apostates within the city and just outside the borders willing to risk capture or execution to smuggle apprentices and mages out of the Gallows. Anders has attempted to track down a few of the names given, but all of his research and detective work had ended in dead ends and slammed doors.

I accomplished more in the three months before the expedition than we've gotten done in the seven months since, he chokes back the bile that always wants to come up when he passes too close to the expedition in his thoughts.

A disconcertingly familiar tap on his elbow surprises him and brings with it that damnable pulse of maybe that causes his head to whip around too quickly and his mouth to hang open in silent frustration when it's Isabela who climbs onto the stool beside him, tossing her abnormally mussed mane of hair and pushing her breasts across the bar like currency.

"Unless you're not going to finish that?" She offers no other greeting and deftly nicks his abandoned mug, running her tongue along the edge in ownership. It's an oddly demure gesture for someone who thrives on provoking and it does something to settle him.

Something. Not much. He's not seen her since a chance encounter at the Hanged Man a few months ago. She'd been in the lap of a leather-cheeked sea-faring type, occupied with whatever potential she sensed there, and Anders had been visiting Varric for some made-up reason, but really just to get out and see someone who wasn't covered in blisters, blood or rashy patches. They'd made eye-contact, but that was all. He'd been in and out in less than an hour, caught up on what business Varric cared to share with him and a few other bits of news that he never actively sought but thoroughly appreciated.

"This answers a question I had a few months ago," she takes a long swig of ale and keeps her eyes on her drink. "You could manage to be a black hole of fun even at a place as wondrous as the Rose." Her knee bumps against his, hard. "I miss the old Anders…he seemed like a fun guy."

His teeth dig into his tongue for a moment, he brows drawing together in something close to hurt. Of all the things he needs to be reminded of…"You didn't know that Anders." She's surprised. "Spending a few hours in a bedroom with someone hardly counts as knowing them."

"Well, to be fair to me, I've been operating under the assumption that you treated the entire world like your bedroom, and everyone in it like potential conquests."

Lips turn down at the corners. He's forgotten how astute the woman can be when she's not trying so hard to disarm. Of course, she could also be describing herself. Or what she lets people to think of her.

"It wasn't quite that. But people do change, even without…" he gestures to himself. "You can probably guess that Justice doesn't necessarily approve of seeing everyone as potential conquests to be taken advantage of and left behind."

Isabela shrugs, her eyes gleaming with the sudden idea of mischief. "You do realize there's a middle ground between whore and priest, don't you? I think there's a word for it…monotony, maybe?"

"For some people. Not me," he wishes he'd kept his drink. Or rather that he'd not ordered it in the first place, because he is so very aware of that middle ground and how thoroughly he'd rejected it. Still, as he does with Varric, he leads Isabela on, longing for even a passing mention…"And who do you suppose would put up with me for longer than a day, knowing what I am?"

She doesn't bite. "Fuck if I know. Maybe that incredibly handsome man down there?" She tilts her head towards the end of the bar and a man that Anders had noticed earlier in the night.

He's the sort of man that everyone notices. Rangy but elegant, a head of ebony hair shot through with veins of silver that also run through his neatly cropped beard. His eyes are clear grey, striking even in this low light, and his features angular. From his finery, he belongs in Hightown. From his careless posture, intense gaze and purposeful smirk, he belongs anywhere he wants to be.

His attention in on Anders.

"It's not the first time someone's thought to hire me," he returns to Isabela, discomfort and a slight thrill of panic tightening the muscles in his shoulders. "He must know what I am."

"Ah," she swivels around, knocking against him in the process. "Electricity thing. Well, fun seeing you as always. I'm heading back upstairs so I don't have to smack you later when you deny yourself a prize proposition."

It's easier to let her leave, so he does. Enough has been said as it is and, although he knows she wasn't being deliberately cruel, he's doing quite well needling himself this evening.

The extra help is quite unnecessary.

Sighing as if it's been an effort to sit at the bar waiting for Lusine, he too abandons his seat and nearly plows over the haggard madame who's appeared behind him with a coinpurse clutched in one aged hand.

"Here you go, Fereldan," she relinquishes the gold with clear reluctance. "A discount would be cheaper."

"In more way than one," the bag gets shoved into his jacket. He almost states, with unwelcome specificity, exactly why he's unwilling to take her up on a repeated offer of reduced rates, but the man at the end of the bar is watching and his interest in Anders is undisguised and nothing like the lascivious gazes he's used to receiving here.

He wishes it were.

If he follows us…

Anders does not allow himself to panic, but instead moves towards the door, counting steps as he dodges a pair of workers who grope each other in a teaseshow for a table full of barely attentive merchants and a man he suspects might be Gamlen Amell.

He doesn't stop to see.

He doesn't stop once he's outside, either, and gulping air that goes down like glass. Instead he rushes to the stairs that are directly across the plaza from the Rose's main entrance. Despite the frigid night, there's a substantial crowd of sailors, nobles and uneasy women shivering in low-cut gowns, soldiering through the cold snap for extra coin to keep them in firewood and oil for the remainder of the season.

Justice is no longer fascinated. This strange man had been too intent, too focused on Anders. Most worrying had been a flicker of familiarity in those grey eyes, as if he knew the apostate when Anders is certain he'd never seen the man before this evening.

The stairway is littered with couples of convenience and exchange. Anders is glad for their presence, despite worrying for a boy who appears far too young to be out and with his cheek shoved against the rough stone of the city wall while a dead-eyed soldier type bucks against him. His mouth opens to intervene, varying degrees of stupidity, but he catches a shadow descending behind him, growing larger with every second that Anders hesitates and he knows it's a risk he can't take.

He does not remember running the rest of the way down the stairs, fighting the urge to cast a discreet haste spell, nor does he pause when he hears a voice he does not know shout his name, allowing it to echo around him but not catch because he cannot be caught. Not by someone he doesn't know who knows him.

What he does do is this: make a wrong turn. It's near his usual entrance into the sewer, but not quite and turns out to be a dead end.

But it's also an empty dead end, and only blank city walls that stretch up towards Hightown. If something should happen here, whether by magic or by hand, it could very well go unnoticed.

Except he's not a man who won't be missed.

"Anders?" The voice rumbles down the alley.

Justice flares, blue shading Anders' vision to give the approaching stranger an unearthly glow.

He stops.

Justice retreats, but still lingers on Anders' skin, the cool air around him electric with the spirit.

"You were a friend if Karl Thekla," the man states this as if it is common knowledge.

Anders feels the prickling of sweat along his hairline, a very human reaction to any mention of Karl.

"How do you know of him?" Anders does not relax his guarded stance. Karl had been well-regarded within the Circles for his research into the spirit school of magic, but his is not a name any non-mage should have committed to memory.

The man shrugs and begins walking forward again, clearly unconcerned with whatever threat Anders might pose.

"I never met the man, but he and my partner were in close contact during his stay in the Gallows." Close is lavished with an uncomfortable amount of attention. "I arranged the details of his escape…and it's probably my fault he ended up in his unenviable predicament." He offers Anders a tight smile. "Sorry about that."

The last rays of sunlight illuminate the white spires of the Kirkwall Chantry, although the golden door is already shadowed and the outside torches lit. The Hawkes and Aveline are part of a small clutch of people arriving for the evening Chant, all of them in Hightown finery.

The evening Chant is not for the poor, who probably wouldn't survive the dark walk back to Lowtown.

Wil finds the sparse, unfamiliar crowd suits her. If she has to be here, then she'd rather it be a personal affair and not one she'd have to explain to curious noblewomen the next time she visits the market.

Leandra clings to her arm as they enter, worried creases deepening between her eyes as she squeezes a few times and Wil comes up disappointing. Not a surprise, that.

"Ivetta was telling me over tea this afternoon that the latest trend in Orlais is plump arms," it's said almost absentmindedly and punctuated with another judgmental squeeze. "Bared shoulders and curves and shimmering fabrics. You'd look so lovely in pale pink, Wilhelmina."

Wil can't hide the cringe that follows that assessment, Aveline offering a sympathetic glance over Leandra's bowed head before she ushers them to a prayer bench on the side of the mezzanine that isn't fraught with traumatic memories.

There's nothing here Wil wants. The bench is unforgiving, the air is cloying with incense and the distinctive odor of furs and smoking wax. Despite their being ample seating all around the mezzanine, a family of dour-faced Orlesians take the bench directly in front of them and a pair of elderly gentleman wedge themselves behind Wil and almost immediately begin communicating back and forth via throat-clearing and harrumphing.

I hope Mother remembers this night the next time I've done something wrong. Wil shakes herself. Dammit, Wil. How could she forget this night?

Guility, she pulls her gloves off so that she can slip one warm hand into Leandra's, who clings to the offering as if it's a lifeline and, despite the Chanty being...chanted, and prayers offered to all those suffering or in need of the Maker's guidance, it's Wil's hand that Leandra seems to treasure the most.

It's nice, in its way. It at least makes Wil feel like she's doing something worthwhile, even if she can only endure the words being intoned by a pair of priests who weigh each syllable the same as the one that comes after it, lending the verses a smooth surface that allows Wil's thoughts to slide easily over.

Not that they're important thoughts. She's starting to doubt she's ever had a single one of those. No, these days her mind is occupied with frivolous concerns- curtains and carpets and what color to paint the mantles so that they pop against the masonry? Where she used to be concerned that her mother might go to bed with an empty stomach, or be imprisoned , now she stands in front of a wardrobe literally overflowing with dresses she doesn't remember purchasing or asking to have made and wonders if anyone would miss her if she threw them onto the hardwood or maybe I should have carpet put in up here, too and climbed inside the wardrobe forever.

In the Chantry, she allows her mind to wonder over renovations to the library, which is the last room that needs them before Wil's own quarters receive attention. The past four months since they moved have been spent squatting in her own home, usually passing out from exhaustion well after dawn and wherever she happened to be at the time sleep decided to claim her.

The hearth, the dining room table, the bench in the foyer...one morning it was on the floor in front of Leandra's armoire. Wil had awoken to her mother's gentle hands and together they'd gotten her to the bed, where Leandra had held her daughter as her daughter for the first time since the twins had been born, when little Wilhelmina had curled herself around her mother's swollen abdomen and gently explored the smooth, firm surface, thrilling at every thump and nudge that greeted her small, probing hands.

Wil jerks on the pew, realizing that the Chant is over and all heads, save her own, are bowed in prayer. Instead of joining them, she pulls her hand away from Leandra and takes the time to wipe her eyes before the others can see her.

The benediction ends just as Wil feels suitably composed and the congregation rises as a unit, filing out of the pews and towards the stairs visibly no different than they'd been when they'd come in.

Unless Leandra walking by herself, mindlessly diving through the Orlesians and the old men, counts as different. Her small frame disappears down the stairs before Wil can even make it to the edge of the mezzanine, and she's urging Aveline, who is a few steps closer, to give chase when she hears a familiar voice behind her.

"Serah Hawke?" She stops and turns only her head in expectation, startled by the lack of dread in her stomach. This is what happens when you don't go out of your way to piss people off...you're not scared to talk to them again. "It's a pleasure, and a surprise, to see you."

Sebastian states it so pleasantly, she has no doubt that it's true. Shoving aside her usual reservations, she offers something close to a smile as he materializes into view and then politely pulls her away from where the remaining parishioners are filing out, his fingertips pressing resolutely into her elbow.

"Sebastian." Then, because it's her. "Prince? Brother...you. Seb?"

He smiles, a flash of white, and faint lines crease next to his eyes. "Sebastian will suffice. I'm between positions, so to speak."

"Yet still here?" She looks him over, surprised by the relatively plain tunic he wears. Without the gleaming white armor, he's not quite so much a pinnacle of visual virtue. "It's been almost a year."

"It takes time to rally support on the scale required," his lips hold a ghost of a grin. "And I don't want to press until I know for certain that...," a shadow passes, momentarily darkening sky-colored eyes. Then he's back to brightness. "Besides...this is my home. I still serve the Maker."

"Yes, but rushing in to dethrone a usurper sounds like so much fun," Wil recognizes the tone she's using. This is how she speaks to the nobles who circle her, eying her with her newfound wealth and social status and usually find her lacking. Irreverent charm is how she stays afloat, treading each encounter while searching as discreetly as she can for any sign of a reprieve.

She has no real reason to do that to Sebastian. Not yet, anyway.

"You might think so," he chuckles and leans back against the wall. "Some of us aren't quite so skilled or fearless."

Ha. Fearless. Foolish, more like. Desperate for coin at the time, definitely. "Do I look skilled or fearless to you?"

This invites attention she wishes she'd not asked for. Wil is aware, painfully so, of how the past several months have worn on her appearance.

Still, it hurts a little when Sebastian's nose wrinkles in concern.

"I had noticed...but thought it rude to ask," his voice lowers. "Your sister is not with you."

And...no. Her sister is not with her.

"My sister is why we're here," she admits, quietly...surprised she can hear herself at all. She's managed to keep even her thoughts silent on this topic today. "Praying for her safety on her nameday."

"Did she run away?" He's surprised. "Or was she taken?"

Wil turns aside, unable to endure his sympathetic gaze. "Neither. She was corrupted in the Deep Roads. She's with the Grey Wardens now...or not."

Or not is its own admission and Sebastian draws a quick breath.

"And...you did not pray with the others." Just an observation of something that no doubt makes her seem like the worst sort of uncaring asshole. "You think she didn't make it?"

His question is greeted with silence. Not because it's too personal, which...totally too personal. But even too personal would earn something smartass. This silence is because she can't admit to anyone that she doesn't know what she would pray for.

How can she? Months to think it over and, even removing selfishness from the scenario, she's still no closer to deciding whether living as a Warden or death would be the preferable outcome for her sister.

"I apologize," he murmurs and catches himself before saying anything that might fall unwelcome on her ears. She can only imagine what he wants to say. I'll pray for your sister, I'll pray for your mother...

I'll pray for you.

He has an air of naiveté about him, but he's not stupid. There are just some things you don't say to certain people.

"It's freezing outside, and Mother probably doesn't trust me to walk the five feet between here and home on my own. I should be leaving," her voice falters and she offers a nod to fill the void. "Sebastian."

He lets her go without another word, although the way his lips turn down says plenty.

And now I can fret the next time we talk. It's reassuring.

Outside Avelina and Leandra are shivering at the base of the steps, cloaks tugged closed and their hoods pulled low over their foreheads. A gust of wind catches Leandra's and it falls away, allowing loose strands of silver hair to whip across a face worn with uncommon gravity.

"But however hard today is on you, it has to be that much harder on Leandra."

Wil hurries down to join them, her hands automatically going to refortify her mother against the cold. It's a gesture of concern, but also of confirmation.

Conformation that she still has it in her.

She has no idea what anymore, but she knows it's not a good thing to just not care.